In April 2016, Seventhwave chief economist and principal Steve Kihm's co-authored paper, “You Get What You Pay For: Moving Toward Value in Utility Compensation,” was included in a draft ruling by the California Public Utilities Commission.

Steve co-authored the paper in June 2015 with Ron Lehr, director at Western Grid Group, Sonia Aggarwal, director at America's Power Plan and Edward Burgess, program manager at Arizona State University. The draft ruling adopts the team's proposed incentive framework for distributed generation resources. If adopted, the ruling could serve as a catalyst for distributed generation deployment across California and transform utility regulatory reform in the U.S.